Homebase Company

HomeBase's hapless Stickman has apparently completed his home improvements. The cartoon stick figure, who relies heavily on the advice of the home improvement warehouse chain in television commercials, is being retired in favor of a new, yet-to-be-defined ad campaign. Fullerton-based HomeBase said Monday that it has put its $15- to $20-million broadcast advertising account up for review.

HomeBase's Stickman used to tell TV viewers that home improvement projects are simple. Not so anymore. The Irvine-based chain of do-it-yourself stores launched a campaign last week saying that it has hired experts and retrained its workers to help customers. The company's employees, portrayed by actors and actresses, capably handle paint rollers and table saws. One of the seven commercials shows a class filled with HomeBase "employees" learning how to serve their customers.

Would a home improvement store by any other name still be as sweet? Starting this weekend, HomeClub will find out. The Fullerton-based chain of do-it-yourself centers will change its name to HomeBase on Saturday. To draw attention to the change, the 73-store chain is hiring clowns and planning to give away helium-filled balloons and knickknacks, such as screwdrivers, flashlight key chains and painting caps.

The HomeClub chain of do-it-yourself stores is changing its name to HomeBase in April to assure consumers that it has jettisoned its membership policy, the Fullerton-based company said Tuesday. HomeClub, a division of Waban Inc. of Natick, Mass., took a $3.4-million pretax charge against fourth-quarter profits for the cost of installing new signs and to make other changes resulting from the new name. The signs have yet to go up. Still, HomeClub was able to post operating profits of $7.

HomeBase Inc., which hammered its way into the hearts of homeowners as a discount do-it-yourself store, now plans to drill into the market for professional home installations as well. The 87-store home improvement chain hopes to fill the gap left when Sears, Roebuck & Co. dropped much of its at-home installation services. Those included jobs that are typically too complicated for homeowners, such as installing roofing, garage doors or chain-link fences.

HomeBase warehouses said Thursday that it has removed certain floor-stand and desktop oscillating fans from its store shelves because the products didn't meet Underwriters Laboratories Inc. safety requirements. The Irvine home improvement company said that Underwriters had notified it that three models of Envirotech and Enviro-Temp fans didn't comply with standards. HomeBase, a unit of Waban Inc.

Jim Halpin, the HomeBase Inc. president who guided the home-improvement chain through a name change and the dropping of its membership policy, is leaving to take on new duties at the parent company's headquarters in Massachusetts. Succeeding him will be William Patterson, 46, a career Sears, Roebuck & Co. executive who most recently was in charge of Sears' home-improvement business. Halpin's new duties at parent Waban Inc. in Natick, Mass., were not specified.

Ila Bramhill knows what she likes--and the service she had been getting at her neighborhood HomeBase store just wasn't it. She could never find what she wanted, and employees were of little assistance. Said the Tustin resident: "I used to get so mad at the salespeople that I'd walk out." But when Bramhill walked out of the do-it-yourself store on Barranca Avenue in Irvine last week, she had a $75 purchase in hand and a whole new attitude.